Cold Winter Nights
by Twinkletalon
Summary: In which Sally hates the cold and Larry tries to make it better for his best friend (hint, it might involve kissing it better).


Sally had never been a fan of Winter. It reminded him too much of the white walls of a hospital, and snow was always a pain to walk through.

Not that he really liked Summer either. But at least it had pools and a two month long break from school to look forward too. Winter was just worse in comparison. It was always freezing outside, and he was never able to convince his dad to let him go outside alone after dark. However, that only mattered when the sun went down at five o'clock in the afternoon.

"It's like the sun wants us all to just go to bed. Eternally."

He faintly heard Larry's laughter from the walkie talkie in his hand. He probably hadn't realized he was holding onto the button, the doof.

"Anyways," Sal continued, "that's why I'm never setting foot outside my room again. Wake me up when it's warm outside again." As he said that, he curled tighter into the cocoon of blankets he has piled up on his bed.

"But what about our weekly head banging sessions! Come on dude, you gotta at least come downstairs for food right?" He could tell that Larry was joking, but Sally didn't miss the hint of concern in his voice.

"Nope." He responded.

"Oh, okay then." He could almost see Larry subtly nodding his head.

The silence lasted only for another moment before both of them burst out into laughter again. It took them a couple minutes to get back on track from what they had actually been talking about. He always seemed to get off track so easily when talking with Larry.

"So, about that head banging session I mentioned earlier…?"

"Ugh, don't push it Larry. You know I already have a headache from that test we took earlier today."

"Which you totally aced cause you're great at math. Plus, at least it's a Friday! We got the whole weekend to do whatever we want! We could like, go walk around town or something."

"Not in this weather we're not." He grumbled from underneath the covers of his not-nearly-warm-enough bedsheets.

"What, are you still cold? Dude we got back from school like an hour ago." He hard some shuffling on the other end of the line, as though Larry was trying to find something.

"Yeah, but it's so damn cold up here. Can't you like convince your mom to come rev up our heaters?"

"I don't think it works like that man." Sal imagined the shrug that went along with his words.

"Well, it was worth a shot."

"But maybe instead uh," Larry sounded hesitant when he asked, "you could come down here? More insulation in the basement right?"

Sal chuckled, "I don't think that's how that works, Larry. And your room is literally right next to the door outside, which I might remind you is—"

"'Is so 'effing cold that you couldn't feel your toes for three hours'. I'm sorry about wanting to show you how cool the night sky looks at night from the treehouse okay."

But even Sally had to admit, "...it _was_ pretty cool though."

"Yeah." He could somehow hear the relieved smile in his voice. "Just not many people wana' appreciate it like you do Sal." Larry sighed and quickly changed the topic. Not before long, they started talking about the most random of subjects. From the intricacies of owning a pet horse when living in an apartment complex, to how to survive school when you don't understand how to organize your papers.

That was the thing about having a friend. Normally, Sally was a pretty reserved guy. He only spoke up when he was asked to, and never otherwise. He knew it was better to keep to himself than to mess anything up and get ridiculed by your peers for saying the wrong thing, or doing something at the wrong time, or anything really. It was one thing to get bullied over his prosthetic, never mind about his voice or his lack of self confidence. But with his best friend he couldn't even try to stop the stream of words coming out of his mouth. With Larry, it seemed like there was no end to the interesting things that they could talk about together.

Eventually, he did convince Sally to come downstairs and hang out. But not before promising that he'd have hot chocolate waiting for him when he got there. Which may or may not include a blend of peppermint and marshmallows especially made by Larry's mom.

He arrived at the door with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, and an overnight bag haphazardly out together in his hands. Lisa welcomed him in with open arms, and gave him the promised hot chocolate as soon as he walked in. Almost instinctively, Sally made his way to Larry's room. For once it seems like he had his music turned down. Maybe he had been paying attention when he said he had a headache. He had sorta been exaggerating and it was mostly gone by now, but he appreciated the effort.

He found Larry laid out on his bed working on his sketchbook. He was drawing using one of those fancy artist pencils that he got for his birthday. As Sally walked over he didn't even look up, he was so concentrated on finishing up whatever he had been doing. He threw his bag over next to Larry and tried to peek over his shoulder to see what he was drawing.

"Don't even think about it Sal." Larry gently pushed his face away from the sketchbook. He rolled his eyes and took a sip from the mug in his hands.

"One of these days you have to show me at least something in there. Please?" Sally tried to give him the best puppy dog eyes he could manage.

Larry quickly looked away. "N-nah man. Let's play some games instead."

"I'm down. Let's see how badly I can beat you at the new Smash game."

"Oh, it is on my dude!"

That was how they spent the rest of the evening, locked in digital combat to see who was better st the newly released fighting game. They were pretty evenly matched, but eventually Larry's skill beat out Sally's overconfidence and he won the match.

He wasn't much of a sore loser, but he still complained about his character being unbalanced just to see how Larry would react. That lead to a whole argument over which characters they would be allowed to play with the next time they picked up the game. It was all mindless chatter and before they knew it, the sun had set and it was time to go to bed.

"Who goes to bed at 10 on a weekend?" Larry, now also nursing a cup of hot chocolate in his hands, fumbled putting away the game controllers before he eventually gave up and set next to the TV.

"I do, duh." Sally was on his third cup by now, he should probably stop allowing Lisa to hand him more hot chocolate just by wistfully looking at the brewer.

"Good for you my man, but I can never get anything done unless it's in the dead of the night."

"You mean you do all of your homework the night before it's due."

"Exactly!"

Their conversation quieted down then, both of them comfortable wrapped up in as many blankets as they could find and drinking hot coco.

It wasn't an uncomfortable silence, at least not on Sally's part. He could tell that Larry wanted to say something but was getting worked up about actually saying it. That's the other thing about best friends, you can tell when they're really nervous about stuff. Or maybe that's just a him thing, who knows.

Either way, he wanted to get to the bottom of it.

"So." He started, "What're you thinking about right now?"

His words seemed to knock Larry out of his train of thought. "W-what? Not much really…"

"Come on Larry Face, I know something's bothering you. I can practically feel the tension coming off of you."

"Then all you gotta do is calculate the force of friction am I right?"

"Ugh no! Don't distract me with physics you idiot." Their harmless banter at least got Larry to smile a bit more. "But seriously dude, what's up?"

"I said already that I'm good Sally Face, 'kay." Larry turned away from looking at Sally, or as much as he could while being wrapped up in the same pile of blankets.

"Hey no pressure. But you know that you can talk to me anytime right?"

"...Shit, yeah of course I know that dude."

"Then, are you going to tell me?"

"Alright fine! But promise me ya' won't laugh or anything yeah?" Larry glanced at back at him with an obvious nervousness in his eyes.

"Scout's honor my man."

"You were a Boy Scout?"

"Nah, But I still have the honor." He smiled under his prosthetic as Larry dramatically rolled his eyes. Sally brought up his third cup of hot chocolate to take a sip, but that was precisely the moment Larry decided to admit what had been bothering him all day.

"I've been thinking about kissing someone."

Sally's eyes flew wide open and his sputtering almost made him drop his entire cup onto the bed.

"Not exactly the reaction that I was expecting." At least Larry was nice enough to hand him a tissue to wipe up his spilled drink.

"Why have you been thinking about kissing?" Sally had to admit, he was curious.

Larry threw a confused expression at him, "Come on man, who hasn't thought about it every once in a while?"

"Well it's a little hard for me to—" Sally didn't try to come up with a word to describe his facial situation, so he just kinda gestured to his face as a whole. "Not many people would want to kiss this ugly mug."

"Hey, I'm sure plenty of people would wana' kiss you Sal!" Larry actually seemed annoyed as he said it. Like how he would whenever Sally made a self deprecating comment. Though this time he sounded more sure of its validity.

"How can you know that dude? I'm just the kid with the weird face mask, they all probably think I look terrible under the mask. Which I do." He couldn't stop the quiver in his voice. It was one thing to know something in your head and another to say it out loud. Larry was having none of it though.

"There has to be at least one person who'd kiss you!" He didn't know when they had decided to stand up but here they both were, glaring at each other from across the bed.

"How are you so sure Larry? No one would ever want to kiss me!"

"Well, because _I would_ you idiot!"

They both went silent. Larry, mortified at what he had just said; and Sally, who was still trying to process what his best friend had just said.

"Y-you would—"

"Nope, never mind! Have I ever told you about how we should be going to sleep soon? Maybe right now." That was a distraction if Sally had ever heard one.

"Oh no, you're not dropping a bombshell like that and just not acknowledging it Larry!" Before he could walk away (he knew that he'd try to run away from this situation any chance he took, maybe literally) Sally grabbed his arms from across the bed frame and dragged him over to the other side. Their struggling only stopped when Lisa yelled at them asking if they were okay, and what all the racket was. He still didn't let go of Larry, afraid that he'd bolt the second he did.

Larry, being trapped by Sally's firm grip on his forearms, sighed and tried to relax his tense shoulders. "J-just drop it okay? I know I'm an idiot for falling for my best friend, and that I'd want to keep our relationship the way it was before. Can we just pretend that I never said that and go back to normal?"

"Not after that Larry." Sally pretended not to notice his obvious flinch.

"So what then? I'll tell my mom to text your dad that you're heading back to your room, and we never talk again? Cause I'm pretty sure that's where this is going—"

Having had enough of Larry's words, Sally decided to take matters into his own hands. In one fluid motion (that normally he would have been proud of doing) he raised his mask and leaned in to kiss Larry. He was slow, in case the other boy ever wanted to back off from it, and he let go of his arms. But he didn't move.

It was an awkward position, their hands were held in between the two of them, and they had to practically lean over the entire bed to reach each other, but it was perfect. After a moment, Larry relaxed into his touch and rested his hands on Sally's exposed face.

It was a very brief kiss, not lasting more than a few seconds. But that's all it took to leave the both of them a blushing mess.

"T-that was my first kiss." Sally couldn't keep the grin off of his face.

"Y-yeah..." Larry dumbly nodded, but he couldn't help but think it was the most adorable thing in the world. But then the other boy actually registered what he said. "Wait, really!?"

He hummed in affirmation. Larry only stared at him in shock. "Well, how was it?"

"Pretty good, at least we didn't knock our teeth out or anything." They both openly chuckled at the ridiculousness of the situation. But it helped to ease any of the remaining tension from their pseudo fight earlier. Not that he thought about it, it did sorta sound like a lovers brawl. He shook his head to clear his mind. He still wanted to ask Larry something.

"So you, like-like me?" He asked.

Larry scoffed, "Oh my god, of course I like you. Thought that'd be obvious by now." He was trying to play it cool, but it didn't work as well when his hands were nervously twitching on Sally's shoulders.

"C-can I kiss you again?"

"You don't even have to ask."

Their previous plans of going to bed quickly dissolved into avoiding talking about their feelings and pretending that they knew what they were doing when they kissed each other. Sally knew they should probably talk about what it all meant (were they boyfriends now?) but after the long day at school and at home he didn't think he'd be up to the task. Instead, they laid down on the bed together and quietly whispered whatever came to mind in the moment. All the while he thought about more and more ridiculous things to say to get Larry it ask him for another kiss.

Needless to say, that was the first of many nights in which the two boys would fall asleep with their arms and legs entwined, kissing each other sweet goodnights.

* * *

Finally got around to writing a quick something about my sweet boys! Thank you for your time! :D 


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